Complaint Offers Window on Chinese Drug Ring

By David Barboza and Duff Wilson | The New York Times
28 September 2007

The chief executive of a leading Chinese pharmaceutical company used e-mail aliases, offshore bank accounts and a network of drug traffickers to illegally distribute millions of dollars worth of human growth hormone in the United States, federal officials said in a criminal complaint, provided to The New York Times on Wednesday.

A 62-page affidavit by a special agent of the Food and Drug Administration details an extraordinary level of personal involvement in the trafficking and sale of the powerful hormones by Jin Lei, the founder and chief executive of the GeneScience Pharmaceuticals Company, one of China's largest drug makers, based here in Changchun, in northern China.

The affidavit adds intriguing details and a rare look inside a major drug ring and the alleged role of a renowned businessman. It was unsealed Monday, but was not included in an online F.D.A. database until The Times requested and received a copy.

As early as 2004, according to investigators, Mr. Jin was smuggling Jintropin, a growth hormone he named after himself, to the United States.

American investigators claim that through the use of various aliases, including Jack Edwards, John and Luis, Mr. Jin made deals with middlemen and distributors outside China and also instructed them to wire money to banks in the United States, Panama and China.

GeneScience even sold an insurance program offering to resend any package seized by customs officials, the government says. Investigators also say some of the GeneScience Jintropin drug shipments were labeled as toys, glassware or hair treatment.

In January 2006, a person the F.D.A. has now identified as Mr. Jin using an alias wrote to an American customer, warning, "US custom is tighten control, you should stop email directly to gensci anymore and delete all your records."

A secretary who works for Mr. Jin, 42, said this week that he was not available for an interview, but colleagues and people who know him say they were surprised that the respected scientist and hard-charging entrepreneur would be caught up in a drug scandal.

"I contacted Jin Lei this morning. He's not sure about the whole thing and can't say anything to the media now," said Zhou Weiqun, board secretary of GeneScience's parent company, Changchun High Tech Group. "We're trying to figure out the situation. But we trust Jin Lei. He has done a lot for our company."

The charges against Mr. Jin and GeneScience were part of the largest crackdown in United States history on international trafficking in steroids and other illicit bodybuilding drugs.

On Monday, federal authorities said they had arrested 124 people and shut down dozens of crude drug-producing laboratories in a case the authorities called Operation Raw Deal.

Federal authorities did not release the names of athletes or others who might have been customers of the underground drug makers, but federal investigators said they had collected thousands of names and were combing through the database.

Officials from the F.D.A., Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration and several other federal agencies, said China was the primary supplier of the illegal drugs and that 37 Chinese companies, mostly chemical wholesalers, were involved in the illegal drug smuggling, much of it arranged over the Internet.

The revelations come at a difficult time for Chinese authorities. China is already facing mounting pressure to improve the safety and quality of its food, toys and other exports after a series of consumer product safety scandals this year.

With Beijing set to play host to the 2008 Olympic Games, China is also being asked to deliver a drug-free Olympics -- at a time when baseball, cycling and other sports have been damaged by doping scandals.

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